Breath of Death
by TheSleepyNinja15
Summary: He fights for his kind and she betrayed hers. A Code Geass x Kimetsu no Yaiba crossover. One shot.


"Breath of the Moonlit Star Seventh Form: Burning Aurora!"

Scorching bursts of glowing purple waves fill the night sky and cut through the female demon's body turning it into indistinguishable pieces of flesh. Her burning scent poisons the air suffocating even the tiniest insect present. Her head falls a few feet away from the pillar's feet screaming curses at her enemy's direction.

"You worthless humans! Wasting your worthless lives fighting something you cannot defeat! Kill me and there'll be more of us who will take my place! You wouldn't escape death by defeating me! You're just falling right into its trap! And that's because you are humans who have a definite end!"

How long has he been doing the Full Focus Breathing? How long has this battle been going? The pillar looks up through his long raven fringe and tries to read the time by the moon's position. It's almost dawn. His injuries are slowly healing. Two of his comrades have already fallen – Tohdoh and Jeremiah, seniors who sacrificed their lives to save the newly-recruited pillar and to block the lower-ranked demons from invading the village.

Should he end this fight with his sword or should the sun be the collector of this demon's fate?

Death. It is inevitable for humans. The reason of one's birth. The reason why mortals dream – of acquiring riches, of finding true love, of building a family and leaving a legacy. All of these exist because there is a limitation, a timeframe that no one knows when will end. It's the exhileration that one feels upon waking up in the morning and the sobberness that the twilight brings. But for pillars like him, death is something they sleep next to every night. The air they needed to breathe in order to do their forms.

He had slayed demons, brought them to their deaths with the anguish of a lightning striking a tree. Long since he had become the harbinger of death to these abominations who feed on other's wishes, who prevent humans from fulfilling their dreams.

Sliding his right foot backward, Lelouch prepares for the final strike. Gritting his teeth, he ignores the demon's incessant whines about immortality and Kibutsuji's power. He feels the air leave his mouth creating a thin mist around him.

"Your efforts are meaningless! Soon, _he _will show himself up and devour your lives! Demons will take over this world and humans will be nothing but a faded memory! The – "

Lelouch prefers to finish it quickly. First, because he has little patience listening to the demon's senseless and repetitive litanies, and second and the most important reason is because that's how they killed his younger sister – mercilessly swift right before his eyes. One moment she was smiling at him and the next one, her head was on the ground. Gentle purple eyes left staring at the older brother who was still smiling down at his precious sister. There was no chance to scream before a pillar rescued him from the scene. No goodbyes to his beloved Nunnally.

His violet nichirin blade shines red with the demon's blood. His own blood continuously flows on his forehead but it is all but an afterthought as a crow arrives and perches on a branch.

"All demons have been defeated! I repeat, all demons have been defeated! Injured slayers will be brought to Butterfly Estate! Injured slayers will be brought to Butterfly Estate!"

* * *

"They told you to go to the Butterfly Estate yet you come to me."

Removing the upper part of his uniform, Lelouch stands before the mirror and checks the injuries he acquired from the battle. A cut on his shoulder. A deeper one on his left arm. Blood has dried on his forehead but the throbbing pain is still there.

A light feathery touch traces a long line on his back causing shivers to his skin. "This will take time to heal." Her long nail brings a different kind of pleasant pain that he gladly welcomes. "You are lucky that it didn't reach your spinal cord or you would be flat on your back right now."

"But you can heal it," he firmly says while staring at his reflection. There, just over his shoulder, a nest of green peeks next to his neck.

"I can _treat _it." Her cold palm lays over his back as she whispers, "One day, you'll come back to me as a corpse. No, one day, you won't come back to me at all."

She is already on her back arranging the medicine when he turns around. Her long green hair softly glows in the candle light like a swarm of fireflies in the forest. A forest spirit. That was his first thought during their first encounter. A deity, the guardian of the greenery. Someone who wouldn't hurt a fly but rather keep it. He was wrong.

"This will hurt so much." As she faces him, the remnants of the Lower Moon One marks in her eyes meet his normal amethyst ones. "But that is the consequence of you coming here instead to the estate."

"As long as you can treat it, the place does not matter," Lelouch grunts as he sits with his back infront of her. The first sting catches him unprepared that he can't help but scream in pain. It is like being stabbed by the demon's katana hands all over again with him left with no defense and Lelouch is not amused.

"Which one was it?"

"Lower Moon Three. She called herself 'Sayoko'."

"'Sayoko'… She's a new one."

"I see. So, she wasn't from your batch. But she claimed to be forty years old already, now I wonder what your real age is."

A heavy smack on his back causes Lelouch to howl in pain and glare at the girl behind him. She only smiles at him the smile that always makes him forget his words and thoughts. "Keep quiet or I'll show you what a former Lower Moon One can do."

He does what she said not because he is afraid of what she can do but because of the doubts already clouding his mind.

Doubt about his loyalty to Oyakata-sama.

Doubt about his love for his sister.

For who in their right minds would involve themselves with someone who is the same kind as the one who killed their younger sister?

Who in their right minds would harbor intense feelings such as love towards your sworn enemy?

An enemy who had killed hundreds of people during her prime years. An enemy who was once so close to Kibutsuji that she was granted with the title of Lower Moon One.

Through the weak light, Lelouch stares at his scarred palms. These lines are reminders of his hard training and commitment to slay demons until he meets Kibutsuji and put him to his permanent rest. He had imagined it, the manner of the demon's death in his hands - slow and agonizing and painstakingly merciless until Kibutsuji is left with no choice but to beg Lelouch to end his life quickly.

Just as what he did to his sister.

Yet, here is Lelouch, receiving medication from a former member of the Twelve Moons who is in a self-instigated exile after turning her back to her master several years ago and who became a healer of lost men - an impossible miracle to believe in but here is a proof.

She was able to cut her ties and blood relation with Kibutsuji severely that the latter believed she died during a battle. No trace of Kibutsuji's influence, not even a drop of his ambition was left flowing in her vessels.

Or so that's what she said when Lelouch's nichirin was about to cut her neck during their first meeting.

Trust in her words, that's what he certainly has.

He glances up and his eyes meet hers through the mirror. Without any warning, he turns around, grabs her neck, and pins her to the floor. Tightening his grip, he watches as veins appear underneath her porcelain skin, as she bares her inhuman fangs to him, as her golden eyes turn into pools of fresh blood.

She is incredibly strong in this form, the strongest demon he has ever faced and so much different from her usual appearance which rivals that of a nymph. So much different from her gentle touches when they share a night of intimacy brought by their own yearnings for a fair, simple life. Her growl, her low, guttural, animal-like growl is incomparable to her faint whispers, whimpers when he kisses the slope of her neck, her eyelids, when he lightly bites her earlobe, when he hungrily devours her mouth during cold winter nights or nights when he barely escaped death and he needed something, someone to remind him that he is alive.

And her scent... It is disgusting.

Her large palms wrap around his neck mimicking his stance but with more accuracy and efficiency to kill. His labored breaths echo within the small house like a clock ticking towards midnight. He squeezes tighter. She begins thrashing beneath him almost throwing him away at one point but he manages to hold on.

What is he doing?

What the hell is he doing?

"C.C."

Immediately, the pressure around his neck disappears as the hands around it find their place on his cheeks. She's cold and warm at the same time, a sensation he's been used to for months now. A sensation which always reminds him that she had been long dead, that she was supposed to be dead for a very long time. Why did he ever meet her? To question his loyalty? To confuse his morals? To test his sanity that has always been in the brink of breaking ever since his sister died?

"Are you going to grant my wish now?" C.C. softly asks with soft eyes that has returned to gold. "Are you going to kill me?"

All of a sudden, the fight left him and Lelouch collapses on top her. He suffers from this every now and then since he met her. Episodes, he calls it. A moment of pure rage and violence directed towards his lover that leaves his mind blank. His sanity's cruel way of reminding him that it is a monster that he is inlove with, that he kisses the lips of a woman who had tasted the blood of many. It is his subconscious acting on instinct, his slayer nature doing what he should have done long ago. But always, always, her voice would wake him up from the episode and he would fall over her like an anchor keeping its ship from drifting away.

Their chests heave together, a pair of dancers perfectly in-sync. Slowly, arms wrap around his back until a hand finds it way at the back of his head. Her minty scent invades his nose as he nuzzles his face on the crook of her neck.

He breathes her in.

A Breathing Form of his own.

"Not tonight, I guess," she murmurs.

No. Lelouch won't kill her tonight and not in the near future. For at the very least, this is her punishment. He will let her live as long as he can. He will make her remember all of those lives that she had taken. All of those fears and cries that she consumed without any hesitation. All of the families and friendships she destroyed because of her blind greed and evilness.

He will let her wallow in regret and remorse for a little more while.

This is her punishment.

And it is his punishment to watch her suffer.

For he will be still with her all through those times.

He kisses her bare shoulder. Bites the skin lightly as if mimicking a demon's action.

She sighs.

Tonight, death feels a little closer.

Tonight, death is the breath that keeps them alive.

* * *

**Whew! Finally got that out of my system! This concept has been in my mind ever since I finished watching Kimetsu no Yaiba and began reading its manga. As soon as Tanjiro and Nezuko were introduced, I couldn't help but think of Lelouch and Nunnally, and as the story unfolded, I always wondered where would C.C. fit in this setting.**

**I love everything about KnY but I haven't delved deeper into its world, so if there are some errors in this story, I sincerely apologize to KnY fans.**

**On other matters, I apologize for the lack of update for Stealing Hearts and Promises. There had been a lot on my mind lately, some quarter-life crisis that kept me away from being productive and active. But recently, I'm starting to regain my groove. Hopefully, it will continue. Just needed to find more will to live haha.**

**Again, thank you for reading my stories and for reviewing them. I read each word you wrote and they inspire me to continue writing. Thank you, thank you!**

**Stay hopeful!**

**That goes for me, too. Lol.**


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